


Bacon Crisps

by duh_i_read (duh_i_write)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: ABO Needs More Junk Food, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anderson And Sally Are Just Friends With Benefits For A Hot Minute, Bacon, Comfort Food, During Canon, Eating, F/M, Food as a Metaphor for Love, I'm Sorry, Let Sally Donovan Fuck Smart Mouthy Bottoms 2020, Mating Cycles/In Heat, No Smut, POV Sally Donovan, Post-Season/Series 02, Rare Pairings, References to Knotting, Snacks & Snack Food
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:07:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26110876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duh_i_write/pseuds/duh_i_read
Summary: "Anyone else who stood in her kitchen, wrapped in her sheet, covered in bite marks and reeked of her musk, Sally would have joked about cravings and compatibility. Instead, she took a bite of the other slice of toast and felt a little like she dodged an expertly thrown knife and a lot like calling Sherlock a moron."Or, what if Sally Donivan and Sherlock Holmes had been frienemies with benefits, with bonus A/B/O.
Relationships: Philip Anderson & Sally Donovan, Philip Anderson/Sally Donovan, Sally Donovan/Sherlock Holmes
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	Bacon Crisps

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t even go to this fandom anymore, but this has been sitting in my gdrive since 2012 and for some reason, it caught my attention again. Maybe being away from the rabid, terrible f6 fans has helped. Maybe my deep love for Sally/Sherlock fic bc I'm always rooting for everyone Black. 
> 
> Maybe because despite reading and loving all kinds of ABO fics (for better or for worse), and having many feelings about it, this is the only story I’ve ever wanted to write in an ABO universe. 
> 
> Also, I didn’t watch past season 2 and am ignoring everything about it and the later seasons bc fuck Steve Moffet.

Sally stood in the doorway of the kitchen, Lestrade beside her as Holmes flit around the kitchen, dodging blood splatters on the floor and recreating Madison Bate’s last moments while he rattled off details about the killer from the tilt of the toaster on the counter and the width of the jagged stab wounds in her chest. The rank scent of dried blood, shit, and scared omega hung in the air and made her shoulders tense, even as her traitorous brain latched on Homes’s creamy scent as he passed her. 

“Check antique shops, collectors, and museums. The blade is hand-forged with a distinct blade; even you lot should be able to find some trace.”

She had her notebook in hand, scribbling down a reminder of people she could call. Dominic had an ex-alphafriend who worked with art and antiquities. Homes were rattling off more things about the victim when she felt him brush against her.

“For Christ sakes, Sherlock put it back,” Lestrade said. 

“Find the murder weapon,” Holmes stalked past them, opening the bag of crips from her jacket pocket and upending the whole thing in his mouth.

She looked at Lestrade, who pinched the bridge of his nose. “Don’t,” Lestrade warned. 

“I wasn’t,” she said. She left Lestrade to find the group of constables clustered around her car, comparing notes from the neighbors. As they finished up, Phillip walked over from where Forensics were huddled around their van, still kitted up in his 

Phillip gave a sniff. “He was here, wasn’t he?”

The constables fled at her glare before answering. “Lestrade called him en route. Nothing’s been disturbed.” 

Phillip sniffed again as he took out his camera. “All I can smell is him. Did Lestrade let him touch the body?”

Sally took too long to say anything, which was answer enough. Phillip sighed loud enough for her to hear through his mask.

Back at the Met, she wasn’t surprised to see Homes in Lestrade’s office, pacing back and forth while he ranted at Lestrade. She resumed her paperwork, tedious and dull, half-listening for the side of the glass from Lestrade’s office

Dominic texted her back, his ex was actually a history professor who specialized in hand-forged tools and weapons. She pulled up Goldsmith’s site, debating if it was too late to call when she sensed Holmes nearing her desk. She looked up, scowing at him. 

“Already found the killer, have you?”

“I believe detective that is your job,” he said in that fucking annoying posh lit of his. It reminded her of every rich alpha wanker she’d met in uni, fresh from public school, and thinking they knew everything about her. 

Holmes didn’t even look up as he passed, but her phone buzzed a moment later. A string of numbers that reversed, gave her tomorrows date at half-past eleven in the morning. 

She could text back, deny him. Or send him a string of emojis of eggplants and flowers, which he detested. But he knew she would not because he had deduced what kind of alpha she was within moments of first meeting her. 

Instead, she left a voicemail and sent an email to Dominic’s ex, waved at Lestrade, and went home to prepare her flat. She was still awake, hunched in her kitchen reading a fucking awful crime novel, and waiting for her sheets to dry when she got a call from Lestrade. Holmes’s theory and some preliminary evidence from forensics netted them a suspect, a curator at a local gallery who had a thing for 12th-century tools and history with slapping around his omegafriends. She didn’t feel bad then when she requested the next few days off. 

* * *

The next night found her in front of the hob, watching bacon sizzle in a shallow pan while Sherlock dug in her cupboards draped in a sheet. 

“Make coffee,” he said. A demand, not a request. 

“I’m not making you coffee. Drink some water.”

“Dull. I want coffee.” Behind her, the wooden chair creaked as Sherlock sat down and opened another bag of crisps. “My mouth tastes like your primary scent glands.”

Sally rolled her eyes, he wasn’t the one with chafed nipples and damp underarms where he’d excessively licked them the entire time they were tied.

“Toothpaste’s in the cabinet over the sink. The last thing I need is you wired on caffeine. I want to sleep tonight.”

“You napped for two hours and seventeen minutes,” Sherlock pointed out. 

“Only after literally fucking you unconscious.” She flipped the bacon, hot fat spraying on her wrists and the hem of her worn dressing gown. “You shouldn’t be drinking coffee anyway, makes you taste bitter.”

“I’m not here to make this more pleasant for you,” Sherlock snapped. Sally thought idly of the soft omega she dated her first year out of the academy, who bathed herself in rosewater and drank pineapple juice by the can during her Time. The one who sucked Sally off without having to be coaxed with lurid cold cases. 

“Stop thinking about the other omegas you’ve slept with. They were all boring and you despised each of them in turn.”

“I despise you,” Sally said, turning the heat off the bacon and dropping it on a plate to cool. 

“I find your presence tedious and your intellect lacking. The sheets on your bed may as well be fiberglass.”

Sally shoved two pieces of bread in the toaster. “Not all of us can afford one thousand thread count sheets.” 

“Given the quality of your furniture and clothing, I wonder where your money goes. Do you have a secret gambling habit?” He sounded more excited about that prospect than the knot he begged her for an hour ago. 

“Can’t you look at the dust on my boots of the hem of my jacket and tell?” She was half-serious, Homes did a similar number on one of the forensic assistants the previous spring. 

“ All you’re wearing is that hideous dressing gown,” he sniffed, “which tells me you are a dreadful spendthrift who possesses substandard laundering abilities. Those three-year-old grass stains on the sleeves would come out with a little scrubbing.”

“Maybe I don’t want to scrub them off, did you think about that?”

“Of course, you’re incredibly sentimental, though you don’t let any of your coworkers know.” The chair creaked again and Sherlock stood beside her, the sheet gathered over one shoulder as he grabbed three pieces of bacon and shoved them in his mouth. He mumbled something as the toast popped up.

“What?” She started to slather butter on the pieces but stopped to watch him swallow, the skin around adam’s apple red from her teeth. 

“The crips in your pantry. Bacon. Same expiration date as the bag on your desk. You purchased the lot five weeks ago but haven’t eaten any. You’ve even taken to carry some around with you, I could hear the bag crinkle at the Bates murder scene.”

The butter knife stilled in her hand. Sherlock was busy, eating a single piece of bacon in sharp chomps and showing off. 

“Why else would you carry around food you have no intention of eating,” he said, mouth full of bacon, “if not for sentimental reasons? It reminds you of one of your ex-omegafriends. Many alphas feel the need to present trinkets and food to pre-estrous omega’s they are courting. You got in the habit and breaking it would be admitting your solitude isn’t self-inflicted.”

Sherlock reached over and grabbed the piece of toast in her hand. “You should thank me, really. The ones in the pantry should be gone in a day or so.”

Anyone else who stood in her kitchen, wrapped in her sheet, covered in bite marks and reeked of her musk, Sally would have joked about cravings and compatibility. Instead, she took a bite of the other slice of toast and felt a little like she dodged an expertly thrown knife and a lot like calling him a moron. 

Instead, Sally finished her toast in a few bites. She was famished, and she wanted to eat a little more before Sherlock was ready to go again. Sally finished off the rest of the bacon while Sherlock tore into another bag of crisps. It occurred to her that she should have made proper sandwiches because Sherlock only ever ate once a day during his Time and she probably won’t get a chance to eat something resembling a real meal until tomorrow afternoon. 

Sally grabbed a plum from the bowl half full of overripe fruit on the counter. It’s was soft and a little too sweet. She wondered if she had time to make a tomato and cheese sandwich and if the turkey in the bottom drawer of her fridge was still good when Sherlock grabbed her wrist. The plum was more than half gone, a few bites of flesh clung to the pit and her hand was sticky with juice. The crips were gone, the sheet had slipped off his shoulders and Sherlock had a mischievous half-smirk as he ate the last few bites of her plum, lips brushing her fingertips. Goose pimples rose on her arms when he licked a stripe from her palm down to her wrist and over the scent gland next to her pulse point.

She starred, food forgotten as Sherlock licked the sensitive scent gland a few times then rubbed his cheek against it, spreading her scent on his skin. He was on the upswing now, the smell of bacon and butter drowned out by his particular smell, like double cream coating hot metal. Sally wanted to devour him. A flush crept over his chest as she dropped the plum pit on the floor and cupped his face. 

“Sally,” he said, eyelids lowered and lips glossy as he nuzzled her hand. She could feel her clit stiffening. “Sally.” 

“Bedroom. Now.” She wanted to roll in the creamy milky metallic smell of him, wanted to drink him down and eat him out and ride him till her knot was sore. She wanted his smug mouth wrapped around her down to the knot. 

So she did.

Afterward, tied and nearly asleep, her nose pressed between the smooth planes of his shoulder while he tapped furiously on his phone, he tugged on her fingers draped over his hip. 

“Hmmm?”

“Crips.” 

She didn’t want to move. “Second drawer down. Bottle of water in there too.” 

He made a sound that sounded like protest, but when the moment crept on and she didn’t move, he reached over to her nightstand, the movements of his body setting off little jolts of pleasure around her knot. She drifted off to the sound of ripping cellophane. 

* * *

The next time she saw him, it was two months later and she huddled outside of the perimeter, keeping the gawkers back and directing the others when Holmes came striding up, followed by a limping man with an arid alpha scent, citrus-smoky. Holmes was excited to show off for someone new, she could tell, and she already had a sneer on her face. She never showed him any warmth when they saw each other outside of her flat, the job made easier by Holme’s behavior. He made it clear he didn’t give any of them, save Lestrade, an iota of respect, despite years on the force. 

She could have strangled him for exposing her and Phillip, though. They have an arrangement, the two of them and his husband Sasha. Sally was a modern alpha, and Sasha was interested in sharing her wife, and the three of them were perfectly fine with it.

Months later, it was nearly Christmas, and she hasn’t heard from Holmes outside of Dimmock’s mumblings and Dr. Watson’s blog. The crips in her desk stayed until New Year’s Day when she was working on a robbery case and opened her bottom drawer of her desk to see them on top of the open cases and black notepads.

She thought of her sister, joking that Sally needed to stop with ‘disaster omegas’, Holmes cold-cold-hot-cold behavior, Phillip’s waffling between making the three of them exclusive and breaking the whole thing off. She thinks of Dr. Watson, a nice, sensible, hard alpha that was obvious as obsessed with Holmes as Holmes was with him. Sally threw the unopened bags of crisps from her desk and her pocket away with more force than necessary. 

* * *

She’d brought the hat, Phillip and some of the others had chipped in. It shouldn’t matter, but he had softened a bit to her in public and they had solved so many cases. It wasn’t what she would have brought any of the omega’s she’d briefly seen since Holmes had broken off their agreement, but giving the silly hat to him soothed that protective, homebuilding part of her she often ignored. She and Phillip were back to being friends only, but he pointedly refused even her offer to fetch him a lukewarm tea if they worked late, let alone an actual gift. Her sister suggested she get a cat or a fish to dote on if she was done dating her coworkers. 

* * *

She ignored her nose on the Bruhl case, and followed the clues instead, made easier by the slick anger and tendrils of doubt she still carried about Holmes. It was a mistake. 

* * *

Sherlock’s death, the administrative leave, and his still dragging divorce left Lestrade withdrawn and reeking of sorrow. Phillip had been confined to lab work and her to desk duty, but they were employed still. They dragged themselves to the pub after the terse meeting with the commander. Empty pint glasses littered the table, she was not sure how much she’s had, but she’s upright so it’s not enough. Lestrade has wandered over to chat with some footballers, leaving her and Phillip alone.

Slouched in the corner of the booth, she laid her head down on her arm. Phillip was eating pretzels from a dish on the table. “Do you want some crips?” she asked him. “I have some in my pocket.”

He was silent for so long she looked up, he had the look of someone about to break the bad news to a victim’s family. “You mean the ones you keep for him?”

Sally was drunk enough that she didn’t just joke it away. “What?”

He sighed. “I’m not stupid, you know.”

“Top of your class,” Sally mumbled. Sasha would say that whenever Phillip said anything obvious or unspokenly clear in the bedroom. It seemed less of a joke now. It was literally Phillip’s fucking job to find all the minute details and craft a story from them.

“Couldn’t smell it, but I knew you and he had a thing that neither of you talked about.” He paused, the sounds of the pub filled the silence between them before he said, “It’s ok, to mourn him.”

She did, or she would, once the gnawing, bitter guilt ceased eating her from the inside. Phillip slid his hand across the table, covering hers. She sat up a bit, resting her chin on her other hand.

“How did you know?” she asked. Phillip rolled his eyes. 

“Your predictable, did you know that? You carry around a bag of crips in your pocket that I only ever see Holmes eating and then you both are absent for a few days?” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Don’t give me that look. Sasha does the same thing with me before my Time comes.” 

A flair of familiar anger almost forces an ‘Oh are all soft alphas the same then,’ but Sally knew that she and Sasha were similar. Sasha worked as head of Security at Heathrow, both of them soft alphas in a field hostile to anyone soft regardless of presentation, with a liking for dickish, too-smart omegas. It’s why they started their brief arrangement in the first place. It’s why they’re still friends even though they both quickly realized they are not the kind of alphas who can share. 

“How long?” Phillip pretended to think on it, a finger over his lips. 

“Since the Wilson case.” 

Literally the third time. “I thought we were being discreet,” she said as she dropped her head back to the table. 

Phillip sighed. “You both took too much enjoyment in your vicious banter. You were never like that with anyone else. Your scent changed whenever he spotted you. He got under your skin.”

Holmes did. With his words and his scent and the moment when he yielded to her and she could see all the gears in his clockwork mind still, even if it was just for the few moments when he came. She did that, and the feeling was addictive. She began to laugh.

Sherlock was right, she did have a gambling problem after all, and it was her stupid heart she kept betting, raising the stakes against his physical need. 

“I’m so fucked,” Sally said. 

* * *

It was late spring and she’d been carrying a bag of bacon crips in her coat pocket for a week. Sentiment, he would say. The handful of omegas she dated since he’s been gone had turned their nose up at her offerings of bacon crisps and drippy buttered toast and kebabs, requesting fruit and muesli and the occasional energy bar. They were too soft, even the masculine ones. She even managed to pull one who resembled Holmes, though it took her halfway through dinner to realize why she kept needling her date, waiting to see the calculating gaze his pale eyes. She took a break from dating after that, the shame and guilt roaring back. Sherlock was unique, a challenge, and nothing gave her the satisfaction of bringing him down to an almost human level. 

She missed him. If Dr. Watson hadn’t made it clear he didn’t want to see any of them, she would ring him, commiserate. Maybe it would end in a fight, like the few she’d gotten into after her first rut when the sharp scent of another alpha’s anger and pain made her see red and she had to show them, show off, bury her feelings under adrenaline and bruised knuckles.

She turned the corner on the street to her flat, grocery bag over her arm as she texted Phillip and Sasha about what to bring for Sunday dinner and to please not attempt to set her up with single omega pilots again when the spring breeze shifted.

Exhaust. Piss. Fried fish. Musk and mint from the mated pair waiting at the bus stop. Her landlady’s roses. Double cream on a hot spoon. She shoved the phone in her pocket as she quickened her steps to her building, where a hunched form unfurled. 

Holmes looked thinner, paler with dark circles under his eyes. He was dressed casually, which was almost as surprising as the fresh wine-dark bruise on his cheek. She walked slowly up to him. Catching a faint note of the lemon-and-woodsmoke scent of Dr. Watson. She stopped a yard short of him, unspeaking, just starring. 

“If you’re going to hit me, I’d suggest the other cheek,” he said quietly. Still the same posh enunciation, but the tone more unsure than she’d ever heard.

So many urges welled up in her at once: to yell at him, to shake him senseless, to haul him up to her flat and lose herself in the smell of him. To sit him down and feed the skinny bastard. To interrogate why he’d come here and not stayed with Dr. Watson. 

Instead, she took a deep breath, calmed by the metallic-milky scent of him. She reached into her coat and offered him the crisp bag. Sherlock looked at it and then back at her face, no doubt deducting every feeling she’d had the past few years. He took the bag, squeezed the cellophane until the bag popped. She unlocked the door while he ate, close enough to touch him, but didn’t. She simply held it open for him. 

He moved first, as if to pass her, but instead moved closer, taking the groceries hanging from her fingers. They stare at one another, and she had no idea what he saw, but he offered her the open bag. She grabbed the lapels of his jacket and kissed him, tasting smoke and salt, and him. Sherlock didn’t struggle or shimmy away like when she’d tried to kiss him before outside of his Time. He stood frozen for a moment, then softens into the kiss before breaking away to stare at her. 

“Oh,” he said quietly. 

“Come up,” she said, just as quietly. “I’ll make bacon.”

And she did. 

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd, and I have a few learning disabilities, so any spelling or grammar corrections you see, please let me know in a nice way kthanx.


End file.
